Lytro, the new camera from the company of the same name, is a completely new type of image capture device. For the camera nerds out there, that means that there’s a ton of questions– it’s a new type of camera but what does that mean, exactly? Well, for starters, instead of capturing an image onto a sensor and interpreting it on a 2D canvas, Lytro’s tech takes a snapshot of the light rays in the scene. The magic comes with the processing software, turning captured light rays into manipulatable images with variable depth of field (Lytro calls these “living pictures”). Effectively, light-field photos are manipulatable after the fact and as long as they’re in their original format, forever. According to the company, this will also lead to new software which will create 3D images using the same data and “enable viewing on any 3D display…to enable viewers to shift the perspective of the scene.” Take a minute to play with the living photo below:
Pretty cool, huh? A hurtle that this camera encounters is quantifying the picture quality. Lytro themselves has had a little trouble communicating this since we’re living in a megapixel world, one where (for better or worse) a camera’s quality is judged on the MP number on the box. In rebuttal, Lytro states that “To refer to megapixels when talking about light field technology where there is no digital image, is kind of like talking about what kind of film is used in a digital camera. Traditional camera terms are not translatable to this new type of picture.”
Lytro is using a new measurement not previously used in consumer products, because their light-field technology has never before been used in a consumer product. Lytro’s camera captures 11 megarays of light (translation: 11 million rays). Lytro notes that “when living pictures are shared, they are displayed on a variety of devices in HD quality.” All this is a little vague, but the word on the street is that this camera won’t soon replace your DSLR or even your point-and-shoot for resolution but the light-field photos are so unique Lytro is betting users won’t much care.
Another standard benchmark for a digital camera is low-light performance. Digital cameras traditionally have some issues with low-light settings although the technology is leaps and bounds better than even two years ago. Lytro has a fixed f/2 aperture (extremely wide to suck in as much light as possible). The company says that because their camera utilizes all the light in a scene, the light-field camera is very responsive in low-light conditions “without use of a flash,” although they note that “a flash is possible and something we are looking into.”
Although Lytro’s CEO Ren Ng wrote his dissertation on light-field technology at Stanford, Lytro is hardly the first company to do research into the field (no pun intended). During the last decade, San Jose’s own Adobe did research into their own flavor of light-field cameras. Using a combination of a freaky compound lens attachment (they called it the Magic Lens, left) and software, Adobe’s R&D team showed off the technology in 2008. Although both projects accomplish the same thing, Lytro’s custom hardware and software are unrelated to Adobe’s research. Lytro told us that “As of now, [Lytro doesn't] have a relationship with Adobe.”
Down to the technical nitty-gritty. Lytro’s sensor is based on CMOS technology, uses an instant shutter (no rolling shutter issues like on mobile phone cameras) with no autofocus delay, the aforementioned f/2 fixed aperture, 6X optical zoom and a custom Light Field Engine computer to interpret the photos. On the back of the tube-like body is a touchscreen which allows the user to play around with the depth of field of the image in-camera.
The first wave of Lytro cameras are set to ship soon (their site still says “early 2012″), and will be limited to Mac compatibility at first. The company says they have “an ambitious roadmap” and they plan to eventually offer a family of products which might include professional-grade light-field cameras.
Thanks to Lytro and Alison from The Outcast Agency for getting all our questions answered!
Photos: IT Writing, Lytro
